Published 11:46 pm, Monday, August 31, 2009

DANBURY -- School has been out for almost a month, so the last place you might expect to find a bunch of teenagers would be in a classroom.

But the Danbury High School students who spent five precious days of their summer vacation at the Danbury police headquarters this week were there for a reason -- they're interested in becoming cops.

For six hours every day, they watched, listened and participated in a variety of demonstrations and activities, all designed to give them an idea of what police officers do on the job and why they do it.

"You could never really go on a tour and get this kind of a look at what a real police officer does," said 17-year-old Nick Gullusci, who will be attending Western Connecticut State University in the fall, where he plans to major in justice and law administration.

The two recent DHS graduates were among more than 20 teens who participated in the city's first Junior Police Academy.

The program is a condensed version of the popular Citizen's Police Academy that's been offered to adults for the past several years, said Lt. John Browne, head of the Community Services Division.

But while the citizen's program is intended mainly as an educational and community-relations tool, the junior academy is tailored toward students who may be interested in a law-enforcement career.

"We're trying to pique their interest," said Officer Rob Morlock, a school resource officer at the high school who served as one of the instructors. "We've covered things like use of force and what it's like to be on patrol, a good cross-section of what police officers do and why they do it."

Students got a chance to fire a Taser, and visited the department's shooting range, where several officers put on a shooting demonstration.

The academy also included a demonstration involving the Bethel police K-9 unit, a talk by an FBI agent, as well as a program on Internet safety, crime-scene processing, laws of arrest and traffic enforcement.

For 16-year-old Amanda Sutor, firing a Taser at a target was a high point, while Ronny Castillo, 17, enjoyed the shooting demonstration the most.

Much of the material for the academy was donated by local sponsors, Browne said.

The department's move to a new headquarters allowed the Community Services Division to finally offer the junior academy program, which had been under consideration for nearly a year, and Browne is hoping to expand it to include the city's other high schools and middle schools in the future.

The new police facility will allow resumption of the Citizen's Police Academy in the fall, he said.